GW2 questing like Skyrim?

Ok don't bite my head off here, but I was talking to a friend about GW2 leveling. We've both pre-ordered, but I haven't played any of the beta, and he's gone on sparingly.

Now I know people are going to try and powerlevel to 80 the way they do in WoW, but will questing make the gameplay immersive where you can't just chain run easy gathering quests and boost yourself quickly? For those who have been on the beta, will it be closer to a Skyrim way of questing and leveling than WoW?

With Skyrims way of leveling do you mean "go around a city and talk to everyone for half an hour and collect a lot of quests, and then just go mad?" If so then no. Quests are happing all over the world, as events. Personal story is like one big quest line (Think like one of the guilds in Skyrim). But the main part of leveling will most likely be dynamic events (Is basicly "quests) But these events progress and go on even without you even being there in the area. Think that you are collecting things for a farmer to fix his house, and then you have to go. Then you can come back an hour later and find that the farm is build, but is suddenly under attack by an army of monsters, and you must help him protect it.

Hard to explain, but if you have pre-purchased try out the stress test tonight at 20 GMT (or something like that)

The events aren't random, they are quests that are simply location based. The combination of combat and the events make GW2 totally more immersible than other MMO's. You also have the opportunity of playing single player RPG style with the personal story. So long story short, GW2 is similar to many different genres of gaming and different games, and comes out looking like it's own game-type.

There is no quest hubs where you go pickup a bunch of quest, then complete them, then return for reward. GW2 is more about going out in the world and exploring and encountering NPCs that need work done or events that suddenly happen (DEs). You get rewarded on the completion or failure of the event. You never have to go turn in anything or talk to anyone to start/finish a quest.

To answer your question, it is a bit closer to skyrim than wow in the sense that it is more free exploring and you can stumble on something going on. Beside the personal story, which feels a bit more like traditional questing, there is no questing like wow.

The personal story might feel a little like a Skyrim quest line yes. But the DE's and Hearts questing system couldn't be more different from questing in Skyrim/WoW. And don't forget that everything you do in GW2 gives you experience; gathering, crafting, exploring, achievements, WvWvW, ...

Well currently gathering, crafting, exploring, BGs all give you xp in WoW. No difference there.

Not consistent/significant enough to count possibly. I don't recall crafting or BGs giving experience...but if it was small enough to never notice, or I only did it at max level...then yeah...I don't know. Come to think of it, I never even paid attention to that. Hmm...

Here's how questing works:
You: Oh look, a heart! I should go to that and see wh...
*New Event Nearby*
You: Oh, what's this? Hmm...I should check this out. I'll make my way to the heart after it!
*Event A chains to B, C, then D is a boss*
-30 minutes later-
You: That was fun. Now, onto my heart quest...lalala almost th...
*New Event Nearby*
You: What the, cool, another. Much closer to the heart this time!
*Event A chains to B, and you also get half the heart filled in, chains to C*
-20 minutes later-
You: Aw no boss, but still interesting and fun. Now to finish the heart!
*See people jumping up something and going really high*
You: Hmm........................what are they doing? That looks like some sort of puzzle...
*Follow them to find out it's a jumping puzzle, not easy, and leads to a mini dungeon*

Don't do just hearts or you will be under leveled and miss stuff + good portion of the game. Use hearts as a general guide for your travels as such, they usually indicate the area level on the map

"Bill Nye: So Todd I got an offer for you. You and me. Any time. Any place. Debating science mano- a-mano. I'll bring the facts, and you bring the Vaseline. Because your ass is gonna fucking need it when I'm done whipping."

Not consistent/significant enough to count possibly. I don't recall crafting or BGs giving experience...but if it was small enough to never notice, or I only did it at max level...then yeah...I don't know. Come to think of it, I never even paid attention to that. Hmm...

Here's how questing works:
You: Oh look, a heart! I should go to that and see wh...
*New Event Nearby*
You: Oh, what's this? Hmm...I should check this out. I'll make my way to the heart after it!
*Event A chains to B, C, then D is a boss*
-30 minutes later-
You: That was fun. Now, onto my heart quest...lalala almost th...
*New Event Nearby*
You: What the, cool, another. Much closer to the heart this time!
*Event A chains to B, and you also get half the heart filled in, chains to C*
-20 minutes later-
You: Aw no boss, but still interesting and fun. Now to finish the heart!
*See people jumping up something and going really high*
You: Hmm........................what are they doing? That looks like some sort of puzzle...
*Follow them to find out it's a jumping puzzle, not easy, and leads to a mini dungeon*

etc.
etc.

Though I guess you could ignore all the fun stuff and just do hearts

BGs give xp now in PvP in WoW.

Also, this is the best description of "questing" in GW2 I've ever seen. +1 cookie.

"Do not only practice your art, but force yourself into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine." -- Ludwig Van Beethoven

Not consistent/significant enough to count possibly. I don't recall crafting or BGs giving experience...but if it was small enough to never notice, or I only did it at max level...then yeah...I don't know. Come to think of it, I never even paid attention to that. Hmm...

Here's how questing works:
You: Oh look, a heart! I should go to that and see wh...
*New Event Nearby*
You: Oh, what's this? Hmm...I should check this out. I'll make my way to the heart after it!
*Event A chains to B, C, then D is a boss*
-30 minutes later-
You: That was fun. Now, onto my heart quest...lalala almost th...
*New Event Nearby*
You: What the, cool, another. Much closer to the heart this time!
*Event A chains to B, and you also get half the heart filled in, chains to C*
-20 minutes later-
You: Aw no boss, but still interesting and fun. Now to finish the heart!
*See people jumping up something and going really high*
You: Hmm........................what are they doing? That looks like some sort of puzzle...
*Follow them to find out it's a jumping puzzle, not easy, and leads to a mini dungeon*

etc.
etc.

Though I guess you could ignore all the fun stuff and just do hearts

Man, someone with ADHD would have a hard time getting anywhere in this game....so much distraction! But this is absolutely how it feels to be out in the world. I loved just finding things to do....

haha I had times in beta where I was doing one dynamic event and another popped up just nearby and I was like - what do I do what do I do, I can't not finish current one, but I might miss that one!

"Bill Nye: So Todd I got an offer for you. You and me. Any time. Any place. Debating science mano- a-mano. I'll bring the facts, and you bring the Vaseline. Because your ass is gonna fucking need it when I'm done whipping."

Yes and no. Because on Skyrim you don't level by completing quests, or killing things, you level by using your skills, and as your skills improve, you gain exp. Unlike wow where you gain exp by completing quests and killing mobs (as well as other activities like BGs and Gathering)

On GW2, it has a small similarity to skyrim, in the following:

You can choose to do the hearts (which is how they call quests here, just roll with it) and your personal story, much like how in skyrim you can choose to go to any city and talk to half the population, and get a bunch of quests to do. OR just like in skyrim, you can wander off aimlessly on the world, and stumble upon random events that will give you exp for participating. Much like how in skyrim its so easy to get sidetracked, I recall this one quest I had to go to riften, and stumbled upon 8 different distractions along the way, gaining 4 levels in the process.

So in that regard, there is a similar aproach, however the number of actual quests is VERY limited. Acording to the wikia, there's only like 350 hearts in the entire game, and about 50-ish personal quests. (There's more personal quests, but only 50 are available to you at any given time depending on race, and background)

Not consistent/significant enough to count possibly. I don't recall crafting or BGs giving experience...but if it was small enough to never notice, or I only did it at max level...then yeah...I don't know. Come to think of it, I never even paid attention to that. Hmm...

Here's how questing works:
You: Oh look, a heart! I should go to that and see wh...
*New Event Nearby*
You: Oh, what's this? Hmm...I should check this out. I'll make my way to the heart after it!
*Event A chains to B, C, then D is a boss*
-30 minutes later-
You: That was fun. Now, onto my heart quest...lalala almost th...
*New Event Nearby*
You: What the, cool, another. Much closer to the heart this time!
*Event A chains to B, and you also get half the heart filled in, chains to C*
-20 minutes later-
You: Aw no boss, but still interesting and fun. Now to finish the heart!
*See people jumping up something and going really high*
You: Hmm........................what are they doing? That looks like some sort of puzzle...
*Follow them to find out it's a jumping puzzle, not easy, and leads to a mini dungeon*

Whats so special about Skyrim questing? Is the same standard questing as in any game. The only difference to games like WoW is that the question marks are missing.

---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 04:03 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Niwoe

Man, someone with ADHD would have a hard time getting anywhere in this game....so much distraction! But this is absolutely how it feels to be out in the world. I loved just finding things to do....

Well, I think the trick is just to go with the flow It is absolutely overwhelming the first time you play the game, especially if you are a ADHD person. This is why I think that a proper, gentler tutorial is a good idea.

I can sort of see some similarities. A lot of the quests in Skyrim you pick up just by overhearing conversations. In GW2 you discover events just by exploring. So I suppose I can see the similarity in that respect.